92 
Psyche 
[June 
TILLY ARD’S WORK ON INSECT PHYLOGENY. 
By J. G. Myers. 
On 30th April the entomologcal seminary of the Bussey 
Institution, together with a considerable number of other Boston 
entomologists was privileged to hear Dr. R. J. Tillyard, Entom- 
ologist and Chief of the Biological Division of the Cawthron 
Institute, Nelson, New Zealand, lecture on his study of fossil 
insect and on the phylogeny of recent forms. At the same time 
the excellent photographs and d agrams shown as lantern slides, 
and still more the actual specimens of most of the important 
fossil forms enabled specialists present to form their own opinons 
as to the correctness of the lecturer’s conclusions. 
Dr. Tillyard was led, on venational considerations alone, to 
select or study the scorp' on-flies as affording a central type 
which might serve as a guide to the relationships of several more 
specialised and larger orders of Holometabola. Comparative 
morphology proved inadequate as a sole means of elucidating 
these relationships but the rich finds of ate Palaeozoic (Upper 
Permian) and early Mesozoic (Upper Triassic) insects in Aus- 
tralian rocks supplied at once an extremely valuable series to 
help bridge the gap between the Carboniferous fossils of Europe 
and North America and the Liassic remains of England and 
Germany. This hiatus in the palaeo-entomological record was 
almost completely filled by the discovery of a wealth of forms in 
the Lower Permian of Kansas. 
Until Dr. Tillyard’s work there was little palaeontological 
evidence as to the origin of the more highly specialised and 
dominant groups of modern insects — Lepidoptera, Diptera, Hy- 
menoptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera The first contribution on 
the Permian and Triassic insects of Australia confirmed the very 
close relationship subsisting between Trichoptera and Lepidop- 
tera and established the probable origin of the Diptera, Lepidop- 
tera, Trichoptera, Neuroptera and Mecoptera from a Mecope- 
roid stem. A very convincing and practically complete venational 
series was shown by slides and specimens to culminate in modern 
